For a long time I've had problems with drivers for my card on Linux (Mint, Arch, Ubuntu).

When I use "Software Sources" to select the top NVIDIA driver, I reboot into a low resolution LightDM screen. I can login, but it's all low res and when I go to system settings -> display, the display is named "Laptop" and I can only select one resolution. nvidia-settings says I'm not using the nvidia driver, even after running sudo nvidia-xconfi and rebooting.

I read somewhere that I needed to install "nvidia-173" instead, so I uninstalled all other NVIDIA drivers and installed that.

When I rebooted, I get "The system is running in low-graphics mode". The reconfigure option and rebooting doesn't do anything. I read that reinstalling ubuntu-desktop should fix this, but it didn't for me. If I switch to tty1 and do startx, I see

You should probably add the output of lspci to the question. I don't think the two things you've 'read somewhere' where correct. Nvidia-173 is too old for your card, and ubuntu-desktop is unrelated to graphics drivers.
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mikewhateverMar 23 '13 at 15:41

That's where I got the suggestion to reinstall ubuntu-desktop from. I also tried to edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf, but greeter-session is already set to unity-greeter. I had a look at the Xorg log. I will update my post. edit: @mikewhatever: is there somewhere I can find what driver I should use? I'll post the output of lspci now.
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MatthewMar 23 '13 at 15:41

Don't know about the other distros, but on Ubuntu, I'd recommend the recommended driver - nvidia-current.
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mikewhateverMar 23 '13 at 15:47

I tried that already, but as I said in my question, it's stuck in a low resolution and detects my main display as "Laptop". edit: also nvidia-settings says I'm not using the driver.
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MatthewMar 23 '13 at 15:53